Women's Roles After Ww2

Throughout 1914 to 1945, the role of women changed immensely. During the 20th century, the role of women evolved, from the nurtures and home-makers and was expected that their objective in life was to get married, bear kids and devote their entire life to their husbands. But during World War 2 with the fast, growing incline of need for soldiers proved that women had to participate in jobs which were usually only consisted of men. After WW 2 with all the soldiers returning from war, a lot of women were fired to re-employ men and women were expected to go back to the roles of a housewife. Before, during and after WW 2, the role of women changed indefinitely and shaped today's society.

Before World War 2, A women's role was patronizing and sexist.

As the war was demanding more and more soldiers, more men had to leave work and join the war. This resulted in the government recognizing that women were needed to work and were open to do jobs once only considered for men. Usually if a women took a man's job it was seen as immoral and was considered stealing that job, but as more and more men were needed the argument of it being wrong for a woman to take a man's job no longer no could stand. And so jobs which were once cut off due to it being "too physically hard for them"(ergo.slv.vic)these jobs ranged from "train cleaners, bus conductors, volunteer police women" (mylearning), some of these jobs even helped in the war, like "making uniforms, weapons and ammunition," (ergo.slv.vic) a large influx of jobs were now open for women going from welding to farming. Even on the front-line, nursers were risking their lives. The work effort of women became soon vital and in Britain "became compulsory" (mylearning) and soon "unmarried women aged from 19-43" (mylearning) had to work, this proves how much their work was needed. During world war 2 "The female labor force grew by 6.5 million" (msundenver) this just goes to show how many people this war affected and the long lasting effect it will have. Coming to the peak of the war there were "19,170,000 women in the labor force" (msundenver) contributing to the victory of the war during various jobs from making

World war 2 ends and the soldiers return home, and expect for the women to quit their jobs and continue their housewife life, although as such a high number of female employees there are multiple who do not want to go back to their oppressed life. After the war ended "polls indicated that 61 to 85 percent of women workers wanted to keep their jobs" (msudenver) and in the 40s it was actually encouraged for women to join the labor force. Even though women were encouraged to work, the jobs were mostly consistent of "routine repetitive work which was categorized as women's work" (msundenver) this shows that there is still vast gender segregation in jobs. And with the encouragement of women joining the work force more women started working but still were considered "Secondary workers"(msudenver) and which they received a lower pay wage. Even though "Mothers are once again being discouraged for working" (msudenver). Women were open to a much wider variety of jobs than before but are still branded as 'secondary workers' and receive a much lower pay wage than the man's but in the 1950s "there were campaigns for equal pay" (msudenver) and succeeded to get equal pay in 1961 but only for teachers and civil war servants. The role of women changed enormously but still are being gender discriminating by having set 'women jobs' and a lower pay wage. The women who were employed excelled at